


mating bonds are bullshit.

by feyre_darling



Category: A Court of Thorns and Roses Series - Sarah J. Maas
Genre: ACOWAR, Eventual Romance, Illyrian Camps, Implied Sexual Content, Mating Bond, Nesta Archeron-centric, Nesta Archeron/Cassian Fluff, POV Cassian (ACoTaR), devlan sucks ass, for hannah because i love u, nesta and cassian - Freeform, nesta being a total badass, nesta training illyrians
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-10
Updated: 2019-11-10
Packaged: 2021-01-27 03:29:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,753
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21385348
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/feyre_darling/pseuds/feyre_darling
Summary: in which Cassian takes Nesta to an Illyrian camp, and she won't take no for an answer."And, Nesta is fine. Well, fine, until Cassian tells her about the Clipping. And Devlan. And how the Illyrians won’t let the women train. Or fly. Or do anything, except have children. Then, she’s really not fine."
Relationships: Nesta Archeron/Cassian
Comments: 5
Kudos: 43





	mating bonds are bullshit.

**Author's Note:**

> all character rights go to sarah j maas!!!  
we <3 nesta being a badass and takin no shit  
also this is the happy ending cassian and nesta should have had!!!!!! they deserve so much better! xx

“I want to train.”  


Nesta slams the sword down on the table so hard Cassian has no choice but to look up, although he tries his best not to. When he meets her eyes, there’s a glaring intensity that seems to burn through him, and he wonders briefly how long he’s got left to live.  


“Glad you’ve finally come to your senses. Amren getting a bit too much for you?”  


This time, it’s her hand that slams down onto the table; she leans in, face flushed, eyes cold and fierce.  


“Don’t be a dick, Cassian. I’m being serious.”  


“Oh, I know.” Cassian stands up and leans across the table slightly, a smirk dancing across his features and disappearing just as fast. If he had to take a guess, he would say he has about three minutes and twelve seconds before she pummels him to the ground.  


Possibly less.  


“Go get Rhysand. I want him to train me.”  


“Rhys isn’t here.”  


“Where is he, then?”  


“Probably getting it on with your sister in the hall. I heard they like it in there. Chairs aren’t so old. Good for stability, I guess.”  


Nesta sighs impatiently, her lips a thin line of disgust. The look in her eyes changes, and Cassian nearly gulps out loud. She’s terrifying enough without that look. And for some reason, that look is only ever reserved for him. He still hasn’t figured out why.  


“Go get Azriel then.”  


“Can’t.”  


“Why not?”  


“I think he’s hiding.”  


“What?”  


“In the shadows. He’s not one for confrontation. And, you scare the shit out of him.”  


Nesta curses under her breath- which, for her, means incredibly loudly. Her eyes lock on him, and for a moment, they are both silent. Cassian is sure he has less than a minute to live, now. At this point, it might be down to the last thirty seconds, he’s not sure.  


“Why can’t you just ask Rhys to leave Feyre alone and help me train? You both said so yourselves, I’ll be better off if I can learn to fight.”  


Cassian winces. “Oh, God, no. I am not interrupting those two. I mean, it’s probably the mating bond or whatever, but mothers tits, when those guys get going-“  


“Jesus! Okay, stop. I get it!” He watches as Nesta screws up her face, shaking her head around as if to repel some unwanted image; to be honest, he’s doing the same.  
“Why don’t you train with me?” He asks innocently. Nesta’s face darkens.  


“Very funny. Where’s Mor?”  


“Not here.”  


“Where, Cassian?”  


“Court of Nightmares. Just train with me, Nesta. I’m not as scary as I look.”  


He doesn’t know why, but there’s a crushing sense of disappointment inside of him as Nesta turns on her heel and storms out of the room, holding up her finger behind her and shouting “Fuck you!” as she goes. And even when she’s gone, when he’s sat down and drained the last of the whisky from his glass, it doesn’t go away.  


“Wow.” Azriel slips out of the shadows, smiling grimly. “She really hates you, Cass.”  


Cassian chuckles dryly.  


“It’s that obvious, huh?”

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Nesta barrels through the door the next morning wearing an expression that makes Cassian sure that this will be the day that his five hundred and thirty-six years of life finally come to an end. Yesterday was a close call; he was surprised he’d managed to escape without having any of his bones broken. But he knew she would come back, take him up on his offer. Nesta wasn’t someone who gave up easily, and training together will be better than her not training at all.  


Well, at least he thinks it will be.  


“First of all, you need to put down the sword.” Cassian says, motioning to the blade that Nesta is wielding dangerously in her hand. She scowls, gripping it even tighter.  


“Why? I thought we were training. If you haven’t noticed, I don’t have wings growing out of my back, so its going to be hard for me to do anything without this.”  


The blade glints in the sunlight, and Cassian comes to the conclusion that Nesta with a sword is possibly the scariest thing he’s ever seen. Even scarier than Bryaxis. And that’s saying something.  


“You have your own powers, though.”  


“They don’t count. I can’t fight with those- not yet, anyway. I’m using the sword.” She says defiantly. Cassian sighs, rubbing a hand over his face.  


“ Well, we need to start with physical- wait a second, Nesta, where did you get that sword from?” He realises, with a horrible sense of dread, that he hadn’t given Nesta any of the weapons- for his sake, as well as everyone else’s. Come to think of it, she’d had one yesterday, too.  


“Amren.” Nesta replies simply.  


“Amren gave you a sword?”  


“She said to make sure I stabbed you in the gut until all your insides were on the floor.”  


“How sweet of her.”  


“Hmm.” Nesta looks him up and down, her lips curved up into a slight smile. “If you’re lucky, you’ll even get to be her next meal.”  


“She doesn’t eat human blood.”  


“Not yet.”  


Cassin sighs again, but he’s smiling too, although he pretends not to be.  


“Put the sword down, Nesta.”  


“Yes, Sir.”

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Three weeks later, and Cassian is sprawled out on the floor, hot and exhausted, his weapons lying uselessly at his side. Nesta lies next to him, hair messy and face bright red. Her sword is on the other side of the room somewhere.  


“I won.” Nesta gasps, wiping the sweat off her forehead. Cassian laughs, although it comes out almost as a gasp, too.  


“Did not.”  


“Did too.”  


“You’re literally a four-year-old, Nesta.”  


“You started it.”  


Cassian laughs again. Nesta was hard to train, at first. They couldn’t get through a full half an hour without someone storming off or yelling or both of them swearing in each other’s faces. But after a while it was okay.  


And Nesta was good. Really good. Insanely good. Cassian didn’t even know how it was possible. But she was almost as good as him, after only a few weeks of training. Possibly, maybe even better.  


“Do you want to come to the Illyrian Camp with me?” As soon as he says it, Cassian realises how stupid it sounds. They’d only stopped trying to murder each other less than a week ago. She wouldn’t want to go outside the Court with him.  


He’s surprised, when Nesta says yes. And even more surprised, when she tells him that she’d been wanting him to say that for a while.  


So the next morning, they go.  


And, Nesta is fine. Well, fine, until Cassian tells her about the Clipping. And Devlan. And how the Illyrians won’t let the women train. Or fly. Or do anything, except have children. Then, she’s really not fine.

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

As soon as they land in the camp, Nesta jumps out of Cassian’s arms and begins to march angrily towards Devlan. Cassian has to run to catch up with her, grabbing her by the arm, but she pulls away with such force he’s almost left sprawled in the mud.  


“Nesta, you need to calm down.”  


“CALM DOWN?” Nesta yells, “Do you know what that son of a bitch is doing to the women in here? Do you even care?”  


“Of course I care!” Cassian shouts back. He notices that most of the Illyrian warriors training on the ground around them have started to take flight; some of them already in the sky, circling around nervously.  


It reminds him of the time after Feyre and Rhys had been mated, when they were terrified of Rhysand’s power. Except now, there’s no mating bond. And, it’s Nesta they’re scared of, not him.  


They’re right to be scared. Cassian is.  


“Of course I care.” He repeats in a quiet, levelled voice. “It’s just not wise to barge in on him like that and beat the shit out of him, alright?”  


“How do you know I was going to beat the shit out of him?”  


“A hunch. But listen, we’re dealing with it. Back home. In secret. So that Devlan doesn’t go insane and try to wage war on us.”  


“But what about the women still here? What happens to them?” Nesta looks at Cassian pointedly. It’s clear that all the blame is on him; in her eyes, anyway.  


“Rhysand is helping. He’s forced Devlan to stop half the Clippings than what he used to do. Now, we just need to work on the other half.”  


“And what about training? They still can’t train, can they?”  


“That’s why you’re here. I want you to train them.”  


Nesta takes a breath. Her eyes are blazing like fire. “You know, I’m sick of you and your Illyrian warrior bullshit. You think everyone in your Court is so equal just because you live in your happy little city with all your happy little people and, wow, Feyre is High Lady so of course everything is fine and we’re just going to sit and watch these women get beat up and Clipped and we won’t even try to let them be trained, because who cares if they have any chance of survival at all, and-“  


Cassian watches Nesta’s face change. He smiles, ever so slightly.  


“Wait. You want me to train them?” She sounds incredulous, scanning his face as if to check he’s really being honest. “Don’t fuck with me alright, Cassian. Not you.”  


“I’m not fucking with you.”  


Nesta stands in the dirt, breathing heavily, and says nothing. Cassian realises this is probably the only time she has never had anything to say. He doesn’t know if it’s a good thing or not.  


“I promise, I’m not.” Cassian says. “I don’t think there’s anyone better. I want you to do it, Nesta.”  


And then, Nesta lunges forward, and Cassian has no idea what’s happening because he thought she would be happy, and he has no idea why she is still trying to kill him, and it takes him a moment to realise that she's kissed him. Really, really quickly, so fast he doesn’t even know if it actually happened.  


Nesta looks shocked, as if she can’t quite believe what she had just done. Her brows are furrowed, and she’s looking at the muddy ground like it’s the most interesting thing in the world. Cassian stands there, dumfounded.  


“Uh-, what was- ow!” Cassian yelps as Nesta punches him on the arm and turns around, grabbing his hand and pulling him towards the other side of the field.  


“What was that for?”  


“Shut up!” she says, although the usual malice and anger in her voice that was usually so prevalent had faded dramatically. She continues to stride forward, dragging Cassian behind her. “Let’s go show Devlan that his women can’t be tamed.” 

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Cassian stands in front of Devlan, Nesta by his side. Usually, it was Rhys who dealt with the camp; they were more likely to listen to their High Lord than just another Illyrian soldier. Even if he was one of the most powerful.  


“Cassian.” Devlan sneers by way of acknowledgement. His eyes travel over to Nesta and he sneers again, the corners of his mouth curved upwards into a sly smile.  


“And who’s this?”  


Nesta meets his gaze, unfaltering. Cassian thanks the Cauldron she hasn’t launched herself on him yet.  


“Nesta Archeron.” She replies coldly. Her eyes are like ice, her expression unreadable. Devlan laughs.  


“Feyre’s sister, I presume?”  


“One of them.”  


“You like your Illyrians, don’t you? The other sister, the Seer, does she have one hanging off her arm too? Perhaps the Shadowsinger, with the scars? Azriel, I believe his name is.”  


“Devlan, we’re not here to talk about-“ Cassian starts to reply, but Nesta interjects.  


“Actually, yes.” He watches as Devlan laughs again; his face seems frozen in a permanently contemptuous, cruel smile.  


“I figured. So did you come here to fuck your Illyrian, like your sister did, or are you actually going to be useful? Although I doubt that will be possible. If you had wings I would have clipped them already, Miss Archeron.”  


One second, they’re standing, and the next Nesta has Devlan pinned to the ground. Cassian can only watch as she lands punch after punch to his face, while he squirms underneath her; the remaining Illyrians had flown away the second she had pounced on him, and were almost completely gone from the training field.  


After a while, Nesta stops punching. She leans in close to Devlan’s face and grips his wrists in her hands, pushing them down onto the floor.  


“Listen to me. You’re going to let me train your women. You’re not going to clip their wings, or stop them flying, or make them sit in their cabins all day while you fuckers go out and fight. Do you understand me?”  


Devlan spits blood in her face, and Cassian growls out loud, lunging forward. But Nesta looks at him and he knows this isn’t his fight.  
So he stands back, and watches.  


Nesta wipes the blood from her face and leans in closer, her face almost touching his.  


“Listen to me, Devlan. If you don’t let your women go, I will come here, and I will rip your fucking camp to pieces. I will come here, and make sure I destroy every last bit of it.”  


“…And-“ She continues, looking up at Cassian and smirking before turning back to him, “We will fucking kill you, alright? Me, and, Cassian, and Az, and Rhys and Feyre, and all of the others will come here and make sure you pay. I promise you that, Devlan. And I never, ever break my promises.”  


Cassian is sure that this is the first time he’s seen Devlan look visibly shaken in over four hundred years.  


And God, he’s so proud of her for it.

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Four hours later, they leave the camp with an agreement.  


No more Clippings.  


No more abuse.  


And, Nesta gets to train them. Every single week.  


They’re up in the air, flying back to the Night Court, when Nesta laughs out loud. Cassian raises an eyebrow.  


“What?”  


“Nothing its just… Feyre and Rhysand had sex in an Illyrian camp?”  


Cassian laughs too. “Yeah, right after we beat each other up for an hour. We had to get out of there so fast, you know. It was kind of insane.”  


Nesta looks at him, smiling. He’s never really seen her smile before.  


It suits her.  


“The mating bond, huh? What a load of bullshit.”  


Cassian smirks. “Yeah,” he says, “Absolute bullshit.”  


They’ve just landed, and Nesta is walking through the doors, when something clicks, and Cassian forgets how to breathe. Like, really forgets how to breathe. It’s like someone is standing on his chest with a foot as heavy as a boulder.  


Shit, He thinks. Shitshitshitshitfuck  


“Cassian?” Nesta calls from the doorway. He realises he is still standing on the porch outside, clutching onto the rail.  


He locks eyes with her for a second and suddenly he knows she’s realised it too. Her face is pale, hands starting to shake. He doesn’t let go of the rail, even when she starts to walk towards him, because he doesn’t think he’ll be able to stand up by himself if he does. And so he stands there, eyes shut, bracing himself for a punch in the stomach, or possibly something even worse. She might even throw him over the railings if he’s not careful.  


But then, he feels her hands on his belt, and she’s unbuckling it so fast he doesn’t know what’s going on. He tries to speak, but she pulls him towards to door and into the living room, and soon the door is locked and he’s pinned up against the wall.  


Cassian realises that no one is home; the others had various things to do, and Amren has been holed up in her apartment for days trying to decode the book.  
But he also realises, that even if they were here, he wouldn’t really care anyway.  


“Nesta-“  


“Shut up.” She says, pulling his shirt off and dumping it on the floor. He kicks off his boots and they go flying across the room; her jacket and shirt are the next things off.  


“Do you think we should talk about this?”  


“No.” Nestas bra falls to the ground. “Why, do you?”  


“Absolutely not.”  


“Good.”  


“Mating Bonds are bullshit, though, right?”  


“Yeah. Absolute bullshit.”

**Author's Note:**

> didn't write any smut because im a total wimp but lets just pretend ok
> 
> for hannah. you have made me love nesta and for that I am very grateful.


End file.
